Gartner Predicts Growth in IaaS and SaaS – We See SaaP as the Future

In advance of the annual Gartner Symposium, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite Gartner reports from the past year. According to a market report released by Gartner in January, the worldwide public market is projected to grow 16.5 percent in 2016, and the highest growth is projected to come from the cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS). Read the blog below to find out why we believe Services as a Platform will be the next cloud services market to grow as enterprises turn to a managed service provider strategy when approaching cloud computing and adding high levels of value to their IT infrastructure.

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According to a report put out by Gartner, the worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 16.5 percent in 2016 to total $204 billion, up from $175 billion in 2015. The highest growth is projected to come from the cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS), which is projected to grow 38.4 percent while cloud application services (SaaS) are expected to jump 20.3 percent. Sid Nag, research director at Gartner explains:

The market for public cloud services is continuing to demonstrate high rates of growth across all markets and Gartner expects this to continue through 2017. This strong growth continues to shift away from legacy IT services to cloud-based services, due to an increased trend of organizations pursuing a digital business strategy. IaaS continues to be the strongest-growing segment as enterprises move away from data center build-outs and move their infrastructure needs to the public cloud. As software vendors shift their business models from on-premises licensed software to public cloud- based offerings, [SaaS will also continue to grow].

When you think about it, it makes sense for infrastructure services to be growing at a faster rate than cloud application services. An IaaS cloud is the most basic tier of cloud computing, in which customers can expect to find the hardware and software that powers the rest of their cloud infrastructure – processing power (compute), storage, network resources, etc. Provisioning IaaS cloud resources can be achieved rather quickly, but infrastructure by itself isn’t useful. Layered on top of IaaS are the set of tools and services for coding and deploying applications (PaaS) and, then, the licensed software and applications that make up the SaaS.

As enterprises continue to move away from legacy systems and explore their options within the cloud, it’s necessary to first develop their infrastructure – going through the consultancy, design, and implementation process of an IaaS cloud – and then begin to explore their PaaS and SaaS options for ongoing management and application deployment. It’s interesting to note, however, the blurring of lines between software, platform, and infrastructure by providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, who offer services that range from the infrastructure, through middleware services, and into deployment and ongoing operations services.

So how should you approach your cloud solution? To answer this question, there is yet another term: Services as a Platform (SaaP). With this term, we define all of cloud computing as the delivery of services and cloud solutions as how those services are composed into custom solutions to fit an enterprise’s specific business needs. Any number of infrastructure

designs, platform services, or licensed applications could prove successful as parts of larger cloud service portfolios. In light of this, it’s important to work with an IT services provider who can handle the entire scope of platforms to avoid vendor lock-in and make it easy to adjust IT operations as your business changes or as priorities fluctuate.

This is why we believe that the managed service provider strategy is the best way to approach enterprise cloud computing to add high levels of value to your IT infrastructure. It’s about working for the sake of the customer and not undermining their value by pushing any one cloud as “the answer” – aligning our services with those of all the hyper-scale players and learning how to manage them on your behalf. We collaborate and work with the bigger players, embracing the consolidation of the cloud market by providing diverse and customizable solutions, always working to find the best option for each of our customers.

About Richard Dolan

As Datapipe’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Rich is responsible for developing and driving Datapipe’s world class marketing team and ensuring Datapipe stays ahead of the curve with product development and client support. Rich has been with Datapipe for more than 15 years and has seen the company evolve into a leading, global MSP. Rich writes about Datapipe news, Datapipe clients, business strategies, and also provides insight into the company’s partnerships with AWS, Microsoft, Equinix, and others.

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